Nagios XI Privilege Escalation via Writable PHP Include Executed with Sudo

Vulnerability Description

Nagios XI versions prior to 2026R1.1 are vulnerable to local privilege escalation due to an unsafe interaction between sudo permissions and application file permissions. A user‑accessible maintenance script may be executed as root via sudo and includes an application file that is writable by a lower‑privileged user. A local attacker with access to the application account can modify this file to introduce malicious code, which is then executed with elevated privileges when the script is run. Successful exploitation results in arbitrary code execution as the root user.

References

• https://www.nagios.com/changelog/nagios-xi/2026r1-1/
• https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/nagios-xi-privilege-escalation-via-writable-php-include-executed-with-sudo